Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

South Chelmsford, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Chelmsford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01824. It stands on Robbins Hill. The Survey maps it on the Westford quadrangle.

South Chelmsford within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of South Chelmsford, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of South Chelmsford, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

43 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires nearby

46 since 2008

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 46 fires within 5 miles of South Chelmsford between 2008 and 2020, burning about 27 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	20
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	19
Recreation and ceremony	4
Natural	1
Smoking	1
Other causes	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 August 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 July 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 June 2020	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 June 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
9 May 2015	Other causes	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 436 shown

Museums hold 436 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Chelmsford between 1898 and 1975: 178 Animalia, 160 Plantae, 66 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Boletus griseus Frost	1898	H. Webster
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Salix eriocephala Michx.	1898	E. F. Williams
Viola brittoniana Pollard	1898	Henry A. Purdie
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Fuirena pumila (Torr.) Spreng.	1899	E. F. Williams
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Cephalanthus occidentalis L.	1900	M. Rodman	Concord.
Nuphar advena (Aiton) Aiton	1900	M. Rodman	Concord.

All 436 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 27 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 27 workings within 5 miles of South Chelmsford: 16 past producers, 7 producers, 3 plants, 1 occurrence. 10 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Copper, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Fiber Matls Plant--Graniteville, Ma	Graphite	Plant
Carlisle Deposit	Copper	Occurrence
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Cu Prospect	Copper	Past Producer
West Chelmsford Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Fletcher Westford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Forest Road Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
H E Fletcher Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Acton Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Amasa W Brown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

4 since 2018

The National Weather Service names South Chelmsford in 4 storm reports between 2018 and 2022: 4 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	South Chelmsford	$15,000	At 5:30 PM EST, many trees and wires were brought down on Old Lowell Road and Chelmsford Road in Westford.
March 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	South Chelmsford	$7,000	In Chelmsford, a large tree and wires were down on Hunt Road at Alcorn Road; a tree fell onto a house on Riverneck Road; a tree was down on Old Westford Road; and a tree was down on Westford Street.
June 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	South Chelmsford	$6,000	At 5:35 PM EST, multiple trees were brought down on State Route 27 (Acton Road) in Westford and Chelmsford, near the town line.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	South Chelmsford	$1,300	In Chelmsford, there were trees and wires down on Robin Hill Road.

Every storm recorded in Middlesex County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Ward Corner	1.2 miles	43
Chelmsford	2.0 miles	41
Chelmsford Center	2.1 miles	41
Carlisle Station	2.6 miles	43
Brookside Station	3.2 miles	43
Carlisle	3.2 miles	41
Westford	3.3 miles	43
West Chelmsford	3.4 miles	43

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikidata item Q122556436

The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611285. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.